


Full Circle

by raleighpuppy



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1767724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raleighpuppy/pseuds/raleighpuppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they first met, Herc was lying in the sand and bleeding. The very last time they meet, Herc is lying in the sand bleeding, but it feels a lifetime later.<br/>Hercules Hansen and Stacker Pentecost have come full circle, which is as close to finishing what they started they're ever going to get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Circle

     The last thing Herc's aware of is sea water, tons and tons of it crushing him and driving the air out of his lungs and he's burning and oh my god he thinks he's going to die. But Herc always feels like he's going to die, especially when he thinks about Chuck, who will always be the scrappy kid with band aids on his knees despite how old he gets, and Angela, who should have lived instead of him because she would have done a much better job with Chuck than Herc. He should have died instead of her. He should have died instead of Joseph in Afghanistan. Thinking of them made his chest ache so much he sometimes thought he was going to die.

     The second thing he's aware of is the sun, which burns him, but feels too distant to be real. And, for a minute, Herc wonders if he's dead yet, if he's some sort of ghost that can feel sunlight. He knows this sunlight is Afghanistan's and he feels his stomach begin to climb up his throat because Joseph is dead and it's all his fault. He couldn't believe he'd promised Joseph's mother he'd keep him safe. It was just like a scene from a war novel, like  _All Quiet on the Western Front_. Herc was the Paul and he'd failed to protect his Franz, Joseph. He was the pilot and they were shot down, and oh my god Joseph's guts are everywhere. Herc looks at his hands, his bloodied hands, covered in the blood of his friend, and shrieks when he realizes he's been blinded in one eye by his own blood.

     And that's the last thing he remembers until some indeterminate time later, when his shoulder is touched by a cold hand, and he wants to scream again because it all comes rushing back to him. Instead of screaming, he opens his eyes to see some people, Brits, standing around him, shaking their heads and talking in a language that sounds too slow and distorted to be English. It sounds kind of like a kaiju's roar, but the kaiju hadn't attacked yet when he was in Afghanistan, so he didn't know how he knew that sound, and he sees Sydney crumble around him, and he wonders how he ended up in Sydney when he was dying in Afghanistan just seconds ago. That comes with a crushing feeling in his chest, right in the center, when he realizes he's done it again and there's no saving Angie. But he can save Chuck.

     Herc is trapped in Sydney/Afghanistan on the day of the death of Angela/Joseph when he feels a cold hand touch his forehead and sand all over every square inch of him. And he opens his eyes to see one person, a Brit, standing over him. And he wants to scream again and thinks he's dead.

"Herc?" Stacker quietly asked. "Are you alright? Stay with me."

     In Afghanistan after Joseph, Herc had suffered a head injury. He'd knocked himself pretty hard, gotten blood all over himself, in his eyes, in his hair, all in the sand. In Sydney, after Angela's death, Herc might as well have died along with her. On an island in the Pacific after Pitfall, Herc had been impaled by a piece of Striker Eureka, his own jaeger, right through his torso, and couldn't move his legs.

"Did we do it?" he quietly asked, unable to detect the waiver in his own voice.

"Is the Breach closed?"

"Yes," Stacker answered, though he didn't know if it was or not, because he'd decided to let Herc die feeling successful. "It's closed. We did it. We won."

      'You can die in peace,' Stacker mentally added. Herc smiled, though it was terrifying because his face was smeared it blood. He'd hit his head again, and gotten blood on his face, in his hair, and all in the sand. He was bleeding out in the sand again.

"Stacks, can you get it out?" he asked. "The metal? Get it out."

     Stacker gripped the metal and pulled, slicing his own hands and not making any progress. He heard tearing and knew he was only hurting Herc and speeding it up and he didn't want to kill his friend, so he had to stop. Herc began to pull on it himself with all the strength he had left, but Stacker saw him fading, knew he was going and couldn't possibly last too much longer.

"I don't want to go to sleep because all I see and hear is Angie and Joseph and sometimes Scott, even though I-I don't know if he's dead or not and I'm really cold," Herc rambled. "Where's Chuck? Please tell me he's okay. He has to be alive. Tell me my boy's alive."

"He's alive, I promise."

     Stacker sat next to Herc with his head in his lap now, ignoring the blood they were both covered in. He let Herc speak and knew he'd be going soon, there was no way he could possibly hold on much longer. In fact, he was growing colder and quieter, and Stacker knew he was going.

"It's so cold. Isn't it really cold?" Herc asked. "Get it out, please. It really hurts."

"I can't. It'll kill you. The edges are jagged. If I pull it out, I'll end up tearing more skin and ripping out internal organs. You'll have to....to hold on, okay?"

     Herc's reply was mumbling Stacker couldn't even begin to understand. He was so, so cold and it made Herc think of Joseph's death because, as he lay dying in the wreckage of a crashed plane in Afghanistan, he looked Herc in the eyes and said "I'm cold, I'm cold." Herc tried to help him by patching up his leg wound, but it was his stomach wound that killed him and Herc was covered in his guts and blood.

     And that led Herc to think of Angela because she was wearing a red dress the last time he saw her, and he though red looked so good on her. He missed her so much and swore he heard her voice, just like when he was trying to sleep, but it was so much louder and closer and more concrete. Stacker's voice became more and more distant as he began to pay more and more attention to Angela instead.

"Herc! Herc!" Stacker yelled.

     Hercules Hansen died bleeding out in the sand on an island somewhere in the Pacific, just as he'd been in the sands of Afghanistan when he and Stacker Pentecost had met, only it was Herc, not Joseph, who died of a wound to the stomach. And it was the cold hand of Angela, his dearest Angie, not Stacker, pulling him to the other side.

"Herc!"


End file.
